Subject: History of Ketchup

From: [email-masked] (Cynthia Miller)
Date: 20 Feb 1994 21:19:48 GMT

Does anyone know what the history of Ketchup is?  The Heinz bottle
states that Heinz was established in 1869, but for all I know they
could have only made pickles in the 19th century.  
			    Thanks, Cynthia

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From: [email-masked] (Stephen Bloch)
Date: 20 Feb 1994 17:09:17 -0500

Cynthia Miller <[email-masked]> wrote:
>Does anyone know what the history of Ketchup is?

The story I've heard (for which I have no concrete documentation) is that
when the British Empire moved into southeast Asia they discovered a tasty
Indonesian sauce called "ketyap".  The soldiers and officers, upon
returning to Britain, tried to reconstruct it with completely different
ingredients and came up with the tomato-based thing we call "ketchup" or
"catsup".

The ingredients list on my bottle of "ketjap" is in Dutch, but here goes:

Sojasaus (uit sojabonen, gist, water, zout, konserveermiddel:
kalliumsorbaat), suiker, melasse, water, zout, specerijen en kruiden.

I translate that as

soy sauce (made of soybeans, yeast, water, salt, calcium sorbate added as a
preservative), sugar, molasses, water, salt, spices [?].

-- 
					Stephen Bloch
				     [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (N.M. Wierda)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 09:49:38 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] (Cynthia Miller) writes:
>From: [email-masked] (Cynthia Miller)
>Subject: History of Ketchup
>Date: 20 Feb 1994 21:19:48 GMT

Ketchup is frequently mentioned in 18th century English cookery books, and I 
dare say it can be found in earlier cookery books as well. unfortunately I 
don't have any of them with me, so I can't give you the recipe or 
ingredients. in the 18th C. works it's spelled in various ways: catsup etc.
I think ketchup may be of French origin, but that's a guess on my part.
Ketjap is a soy sauce, either sweet or salty. I'm not sure it has anything 
to do with ketchup.

Nynke Wierda
The Netherlands

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From: [email-masked] (John E. Taylor III)
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 1994 15:52:39 -0500

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Stephen Bloch)

> preservative), sugar, molasses, water, salt, spices [?].

Only one minor point:  I suspect kalliumsorbaat is actually _potassium_
sorbate.  Potassium is widely known as kallium, hence the symbol, K, for
it.

--
John Taylor
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (David Friedman)
Date: 22 Feb 1994 03:00:54 GMT

On the subject of ketchup. I believe that the early recipes do not
generally have tomatoes in them--it seems to be a fairly broad term for a
class of sauces. I remember one cookbook I saw, I think 17th century from
somewhere in the Caribbean, with a non-tomato (walnut?) ketchup.

C. Anne Wilson, in _Food and Drink in Britain_ (a very good book), says
that the original ketchup of China and malaya was a fish and brine pickle.
She mentions mushroom ketchup, anchovy ketchup, and walnut ketchup--none of
which seem to have had tomatoes. The passage appears to refer to the 17th
century.
-- 
David Friedman
[email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Henry Troup)
Date: 22 Feb 94 15:26:50 GMT

I think the word is Indonesian. Mushroom ketchup and walnut ketchup 
preceed tomato, though.

-- 
Henry Troup - [email-masked] (Canada) - BNR owns but does not share my opinions
Strong Usenet Anthropic Principle: the Net exists so you can see my .sig

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From: [email-masked] (Sandy Silverman)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 18:24:49 GMT

Isn't ketchup a registered trademark of Heinz (or used to be)? And the generic
spelling is catsup?
--
Sanford Silverman                      >Opinions expressed here are my own<
American Cyanamid  
[email-masked], [email-masked]     "Yeast is Best"

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From: [email-masked] (Stephanie Tai)
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 1994 23:50:24 GMT

>Ketjap is a soy sauce, either sweet or salty. I'm not sure it has anything 

_Why We Eat What We Eat_ says that the word is of Singaporean (I think.
I don't remember really well) origin.  Something Asian, at least.  The
Chinese word for tomato juice is "keh jup" (well, Cantonese, at least).

					-steph

-- 
Steph Tai

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From: [email-masked] (amy uhrbach)
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 1994 12:53:56 GMT

>Ketjap is a soy sauce, either sweet or salty. I'm not sure it has anything 
That's precisely where the name comes from (don't know how the recipe ended up
so different).
-Amy (linguist)